Along with recent advancement toward higher integration and lager capacity of large scale integrated circuits (LSI), the circuit line width to be achieved by semiconductor devices has become smaller and smaller. The photolithography technique is used to form desired circuit patterns in semiconductor devices. In this photolithography technique, pattern transfer is performed using a defined pattern called a photomask (reticle). A charged particle beam drawing apparatus having fine resolution is used to produce highly accurate masks to be used for pattern transfer.
In the charged particle beam drawing apparatus, format check is generally performed to check the format of drawing data. This format check is performed on the occasion of data transfer, data copy or the like. In addition, the format check is sometimes performed on the same drawing data with different check requirements (check details). Note that the drawing data is data having a layered structure including a chip layer, a frame layer, a block layer, a cell layer and a figure layer, for example.
In this regard, the data volume of the drawing data having the aforementioned layered structure is so large that the format check of the drawing data requires a long period of time. In addition, if a part of the format check is carelessly omitted in order to shorten the check time, the rigorous check cannot be performed.